This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.

Three Guild Firsts

This was only the second time since we started going to Kara that we’ve actually made it back into Kara twice in one week. We were Gongniu (Warrior Tank), Amellea (Druid Tank), Tatia (Holy Pally), Zynnia (Holy Priest), Ireena (Shadow Priest), Daegothh (Mage), Fynriss (BM Hunter), Sibiy (BM Hunter), Krullwyn (MM Hunter) and Novashaed (Mage). Last night we had three guild firsts.
Well, four firsts if you count it as our first time trying out Romulo and Julianna. Anyway, kicked starcrossed lover’s butts. Hard to get a good screenshot when they died in separate corners. I healed Gongniu who tanked Romulo. Amellea tanked Julianna. I think we got them on the third try. Method: Biggest thing to remember, Tanks MUST pickup the lovers when they pop(our shadow priest got one-shotted on our second try and we really missed her healing at the end). DPS them separately. Then when they both pop, tank them in opposite corners so Julianna can’t heal Romulo. DPS Romulo to 5% health. Then all DPS switch to Julianna. Interrupt her self-heals when possible. DPS her down and then DPS R down.

With that we trotted upstairs to play with new and exciting trash. Our first view of Curator was an eyeopener. Most people weren’t aware that he was a mechanical. I think we also made three attempts on Curator. On the next-to-the-last attempt Amellea died early on to a crushing blow. Seeing it as a wipe I DI’d Ireena. After everyone else died Ireena rez’d everyone except for Amellea. Amellea had released and was already alive again by the time we realized he’d released. He had to run all the way back up to Curator. When he finally got back to us he announced that the mechanicals in the round room had respawned. We almost called the raid at this point but decided that if it was only the mechanicals that we could kill them and them make one more attempt on Curator. Our last attempt was a success.

Learnings:
– Raid should form up in a semi-circle around curator. Close enough to DPS him but spread out so as not to bridge the flair’s damage. DeadlyBossMods or BigWigs are good addons for this.
– Kill the flares first.. and fast.
– DPS curator during Evocation for massive crits.

After that we were just excited. Andrew, a friend of the guild was on Ventrilo and suggested that it wasn’t very far to Chess and that we might as well do it before the reset. Geeked on our success we skipped up the stairs and killed more trash… and then more trash.. and then even more trash. Seriously, is there any trash left? It turns out that Andrew’s idea of “nearby” is different from our idea of nearby.

Eventually we got through the trash. It took us two tries to win chess but we did it. Honestly I wasn’t expecting to get so far so I hadn’t read about the event. Our first try was the “huh, what is this?” try the second try we beat ‘em. The chest dropped:[Mithril Chain of Heroism](Gongniu) and [Headdress of the High Potentate] (Ireena)

There was a little bit of loot drama. Ireena, the shadow priest, indicated that she wanted to roll on the cloth heal-y head gear against Zynnia, the holy priest. Both priests were actually wearing the same headgear at the time. The cloth piece was for healing and it would have been a direct upgrade-in-role for Zynnia. BUT Zynna had gotten her tier 4 glove token at Curator earlier. They rolled and Ireena won the roll. Ireena indicated she wasn’t willing to give the item up to Zynnia and the GM ruled that by our current loot rules Ireena was within her rights to keep it.

If Ireena is considering to eventually respec to Holy then this is a good upgrade for her.. but Zynnia could have used the upgrade more immediately. It’s a sticky situation.

Good job on having fun at wacking the Big Bosses so Grats on progression.

You all sound like you all were having fun and thats the great part. I guess in every guild your just about going to have loot drama at some point when various people seem to need the same thing which can create friction among members over who won so and so loot. Oh well one day hope their is a better solution.

Is there some rule of how you actually play the chess event?

One day i’ll eventually get to Kara i guess. So far i’ve casted a spell on Kara…
/cast Resist Karazhan Purple Loot.

Sticky situation? Uhhhmm…. no. The Shadow Priest, Ireena , is being greedy and selfish, and is in the wrong. You should always defer loot to people who can use it to help the raid RIGHT NOW.

I’m a feral tank…. I pass on all DPS leathers unless no one else needs the stuff – only then do I make my interest known. It does my raid no good for me to have awesome DPS loots when I’m usually tanking.

Grats guys! Good luck working on the rest of ‘em. Don’t get discouraged if you get chewed up them for a while. The rest of the bosses are pretty tough. Curator is like the Attumen of the second half. There’s a jump in difficulty going forward, but you’ll get there! I’m sure there’s still a lot of good ups in the first half which will help gearing for the second.

You’re absolutely right Karthis, but the fix in the situation is to do exactly what they did (ie follow current loot rules) and then ASAP rewrite the loot rules to read something like “On-spec upgrades for raid members take precedence over off-spec, even if the on-spec member has already received an upgrade”.

If you don’t respect the rules then people have cause to complain, but fix the rules so that you can be fair AND just.

Yeah, the upgrade-in-role/use-right-now claim is why I rolled on the healy-cloth headpiece (even tho someone on Venti asked why “Ms. Already-got-a-purple” was rolling for more loot). Our shadow priest hasn’t talked about leaving her shadowy ways, so that was even more rankling. On the other hand, the last many times I’ve been in Karazhan, virtually every cloth drop has been for hands/wrists and HealPoints said was an upgrade for me (which I rolled on and won, most times). So I can see our shadow priest saying Dammit, I want some gear upgrades. Her husband chimed in “She mostly heals” but I don’t know if he meant ‘outside raids’ or was referring to her being asked to drop out of shadow when we’ve lost one of the other healers.

The greatest pain (for me) is finding out (after the raid) how flat of an upgrade the T4 gloves are. And here I have to fault my own idiosyncrasy (of wanting gear drops to be happy surprises, rather than disappointing drop rates) for revealing its downside. For those who haven’t yet experienced it, the T4 (and above, I believe) gear is won in the form of a token; in the case of our guild’s run, [Gloves of the Fallen Defender], usable by “druid, priest, or warrior.” You then take this stat-less token to a quartermaster-sort of your particular faction in Shattrath and go shopping. Owing to the happy awareness of multiple roles per class, Blizzard now gives you options when it comes to your tier gear. The token was redeemable for healer gloves or dps gloves – [Handwraps of the Incarnate] or [Gloves of the Incarnate]. But since I normally don’t look at what loot drops where (once I’ve gotten to a reasonable plateau), I rolled on the T4 gloves token not knowing what I’d be getting. They’re T4, so they must be fabulous, right?

Not so fast…
My previous healery gloves are also from Karazhan:[Gloves of Saintly Blessings]
… which I have buffed up with gems and a major healing enchant to be:
+27 stamina
+29 int
+28 spirit
+98 healing
+32 spell damage

The [Handwraps of the Incarnate] don’t have sockets, but once I get them enchanted, moving ‘up’ to my T4, I net:
+5 armor, +1 stamina, -3 int, -10 spirit, -6 healing, -1 spell damage, +10 mp5. Yes, I know mp5 is awesome, but with a spirit-based healer build, that (+10 mp5) (-10 spirit) slips down to +3.5 mp5 and a (PITA to determine) reduction across all the rest of my heals. Until I get a second piece of the T4 set (for the start of the set bonuses), I really can’t see that I’ll be wearing my ‘uber’ new gloves.

With the perfect “what if” clarity of hindsight, if I’d known the T4 glove token was going to result in such a lateral item, I wouldn’t have rolled on it, and therefore wouldn’t have received prior loot, likely enabling me to pick up the disputed healer cloth hat without much fuss. Having been in a few prior guilds, I’ve seen that loot distribution is usually the biggest source of foo. While I’m not thrilled with how the item(s) were dispersed, it *is* how our current rules are set up and I am enjoying playing WoW with my RL friends enough to chalk this up as a “Don’t sweat the small stuff” moment. -Z-